The Crow: Kiss of Justice
by Fate Thirteen
Summary: What happens when one half of a couple dies, and then comes back? What happens when revenge will hurt the one he loves? I've been haunted by this idea.
1. Prologue

She lay in the darkness, cold inside with the warmth of her blood across her skin. Her fingers pressed against the floor. She wanted to move, to go to him, but she couldn't make her body work. There was too much pain.  
She begged, hoped, prayed that he was breathing. She couldn't tell from the angle where she was. His back was to her, punctuated with exit wounds from the bullets. His hair lay across the floorboards, a dark halo for her guardian angel.  
She made her fingers obey her mind, and tried to claw her way towards him. She could almost feel her body tearing as she dragged her bodyweight across the floor with her hands. She just had to touch him, just once. She had to know.  
Sirens moaned in the air, finally coming to her aid. It was too late. They were always too late. She stretched out to him, her fingers straining for just an extra inch, just a fraction further. Her fingers brushed his back, and then she knew. She curled tightly on the floor, curling around her pain, and her tears ran down her face, scoring lines in her blood.  
Her angel was dead. 


	2. One

Detective Schmidt surveyed the scene with a disdainful frown. It was messy, and he didn't like messy murders. He knew in his gut that the Hoo-Haa gang were behind it, but the girl couldn't remember their faces and the man was dead as a stone. Nobody else had seen it.  
He left the forensics to finish up and closed the door behind him. It would just have to be another anonymous murder. He felt sorry for the girl, though, left alone with the shadow of a terrible night hanging over her. She had to bury the man she loved. It wasn't right.  
He checked in with the station as to how she was doing. He was pleased to hear that she would mend well soon. The Hoo-Haas might have stabbed her and raped her, but they hadn't killed her. To Schmidt, that didn't seem so bad. He went to get a cup of coffee.  
  
The girl sat in her hospital bed, staring numbly at the needles in her arms, the dressing around her body. Her fingers played absently with a plain silver ring. It was all she had left.  
He was gone. Her angel was gone. They'd drawn his outline on the floor and said they'd come back later. His life was left staining the floorboards of their apartment. He was gone. She couldn't bear it. In three days' time, she would watch them cover him in earth, and then she was supposed to move on.  
Without him.  
  
It was hard. It wasn't ever going to be easy, but she buried him, crying, and left him with a white lily against the gravestone. She promised she'd come back soon. She promised she'd do everything to catch his killers. She promised she'd never stop loving him. And then she had to walk away.  
  
For a while, it hurt unbearably to live without him. Then the pain dulled, and she learned how to be alone. And she sought her friends and family, and remembered how to be with other people. Without him. And even though she missed him, and loved his memory, she knew she could carry on without him. He'd taught her to be strong, and now she would be strong. All that frustrated her was that she couldn't find the faces of his killers. She couldn't let herself forget his death and remember his life until those responsible had been found.  
She went through hundreds of police files, looking for faces. None of them made any sense to her. And she lost the will to chase them any further. 


	3. Two

It was a year exactly to the minute. It was cold, a misted night. There was a muffled sound to the air, hiding the clap of the crow's wings. It settled on the gravestone and shook the dew off its feathers. It looked down at the earth in front of it, where the shrivelled remains of a white lily lay. It was time.  
The crow called.  
Nobody was watching. Nobody was near the graveyard. If they could have seen through the crow's eyes, they would have watched the earth shudder and heave, breaking open and gasping for air. They could have seen him struggle to pull himself out of the grip of the earth, out of death. They could have heard him scream at the pain, at the memory, at the anger, at the love he had lost.  
  
He staggered up and clutched at his own grave, tracing his name with his fingers in horror. He looked down at his hands and body, trying to understand what he was. He was lost. He looked then at the crow, and saw himself looking back. The crow flapped up and over his head, compelling him to follow. He stumbled through the dark, not remembering how to move. He moved differently, with more power and grace. As he tripped and fell, he rolled back to his feet smoothly.  
The crow waited for him on the gate to the cemetery. Again, he saw himself looking up, saw himself through its eyes. He watched himself touch his face in wonder.  
The crow launched itself away, and he had to follow again. It led him swiftly through the streets, only pausing if he got too far behind. It led him to a doorway and as he pushed it open, memory slammed into his mind. He reeled back as he saw the Hoo-Haa gang break open the same door, drunk and high with their guns flailing. He clutched at his head and contorted with the pain before throwing himself through the door with a roar.  
The crow fluttered past him, guiding him up the stairs. His bare feet left cold prints in the dust. Nobody had been here for months. He discovered himself outside the door to his apartment.  
No. It had been her apartment, but she'd never come back.  
The door was ajar. The crow clattered inside and waited for him. He pushed the door wider warily. There was barely anything left inside. He walked across the floor to see the outline of his own body still faint in the dust. His blood still stained in the wood.  
"You are not the first." He spun wildly. He couldn't see her face, but the hooded form of a woman was just to one side of the window, shadowed by the moonlight. She stood motionless. "I have seen others like you. Do you know why you are here?"  
"I died." He didn't understand. "Am I living?"  
"You are neither living nor dead. You have but one chance to set the wrong things right, and then you can rest. Find your killers and seek your vengeance. Then you will go back." She walked forwards then, and held out her hands from under her cloak. "You will not see my face, but I will paint yours. You will bear the markings of the dead, as have those who have gone before you." Her hands went to his face and he recoiled as she covered his skin with white, and touched black around his eyes and lips. She stood back. He saw the black clothes laid out on the table near the wall.  
"Those are for me," he said, beginning to find reason in his tangled mind.  
"Remember that you cannot stay here. You must return when your vengeance is spent."  
He didn't hear her. He went to the table and saw his face in the mirror. He looked like an angel of death. He tore off his funeral clothes and redressed himself in black. It was time for him to wreak pain on the lives of those who had destroyed him. Most of all, it was time for them to pay for what they had done to her.  
  
The crow took him outside, back onto the streets, and he scaled the fire escape ladder to the roof. This way he could almost fly. He followed the crow's eyes, running effortlessly across the roofs, leaping the streets, dodging detritus and decay. The crow floated on the breeze, before dipping its wings and sweeping down to street level. It landed on the ledge of an open window, and let him use its eyes.  
He skidded to a halt suddenly, pulled up short by what he saw.  
There she was. Sitting curled on the sofa like a cat, with her feet beneath her and her hair falling past her face as if she'd just laughed. That much made his heart sing.  
And yet his heart was ripped open. She was sitting in the arms of another man. Together, they were going through an old book of photos. She would point one out and laugh about it.  
The crow was waiting for him. Bitterly, he climbed his way up the ladder to the railing where he could sit near the window. Perched there, the crow perched on his shoulder, he listened.  
"Hey, who's this guy? He's looking a little overfriendly, don't you think?" The man's voice was joking, but there was jealousy there too.  
"That's Jordan." Her voice dropped, weighed with sadness. "He died a while back." She paused for a moment before realising, "It was a year ago. Exactly a year ago today." And then she started to cry.  
Jordan. Now he remembered his name. The way she used to say it. The way she still said it. He could hardly bear to hear her cry. He wanted to go to her and hold her to show her that he was still unendurably in love with her.  
Yet he could not show himself to her. Not with another man around, for sure. He didn't know how she'd react. Would it make it all worse? He didn't know. He silently begged her not to cry any longer, not to tear at his heart like this.  
"Hey, it's ok," the man was saying softly. "It's ok. I'm here. It's ok."  
No, it is not 'ok'. Jordan threw himself down off the rail angrily. He would find them all. The crow flapped along the street ahead of him. He would start with the one who had broken down the door. The one who had crooned in her ear as he took her. The one who liked to beat her. 


End file.
